Improvement in coating- hoop-skirt wire



WILLIAM HENRY TOWERS, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

Letters Patent No. 92,4o3, dated .m 6, 1869.

IMiROVEMENT IN COATING HOOP-SKIRT WIRE.

The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent and making part of the same.

To all to whom these presents shall come:

Be it known that I, WILLIAM HENRY Towns, of Boston, in the county of Suffolk, and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have made an invention of certain Improvements in the Preparation of Hoop-Skirt Wire; and do hereby declare the following description to embrace the 'points of novelty, as well as the mode Thef invention consists in japanning, enamelling,

painting, or otherwise treating the surface of hoopskirt wire, by which it shall be made to assume .the appearance of being covered with a woven fabric.

In carrying out my invention, in one form of its. manifest various modes of adaptation, I apply to the outer surface of a strip or ribbon of metallic hoop-skirt wire of ordinary production, one or more coats of paint, or other analogous pigment or composition, and when this has become partially dry, and while in a tacky state, "I pass the metallic strip through a pair of rollers, properly covered with cloth orother material, or otherwise prepared in such manner as to leave an impress upon the paint closely in imitation of the woven fabric now generally employed;

It will not, however, in practice be found necessary, even if desiral'ile, to impart this peculiar appearance to the surface of the substance which is applied to the metallic strip, as, at a little distance from the eye, the effect in either case would be substantially the same, and it would be difficult to determine which the metallic strip was, covered by the old mode or by thatherein described.

Undoubtedly the most expeditious, as well as most durable and ornamental mode of preparing hoop-skirt wire, under my invention, would be to subject it .to

the well-known process of japanning with a white pigment. 1

Variations, however, in the material adopted, as

well as in the mode of applying it, may be made, without affecting the character of my present invention, which is intended to include within its scope every possible detail of covering, coating, or enveloping hoop-skirt wire by means of pigments of any nature, or their equivalent material.

Hoop-skirt wire treated as above, will be found to possess the characterisii: of extreme neatness, iuasmuch as it may be washed thoroughly at any time, after becoming soiled; of cheapness, because its pigment-covering may be applied at a much less expenditure of time and cost in material than is now required to encloseit in a woven fabric; and of neatness and elegance,jbecause the hoops composed of it are of less bulk and more nearly invisible, and because the ragged, soiled, and ravelled appearance, now frequently presented by the wearing out of a woven covering, is

avoided. v I Having thus described the nature of my invention, and its characteristic advantages,

What I believe to be novel and original with myself, as well as desirable and useful to the public, and

desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States, is as follows:

1. I claim coating or covering hoop-skirt wire with compositions, substantially such as herein described,

so as to dispense with the necessity of fibrous cover ing.

1 2. I claim the improved skirt-wire or spring, formed by painting, enamelling, japanning, or otherwise coating, substantially as described. '3. I claim the process, herein described, of forming hoop-skirt wire by coating, and the passing between rollers, so as to imitate a woven fabric, such as herein described.

Witnesses: WM. H. TOWERS.

E. H. Hnwms, l nnn. CURTIS. 

